If the game is worth playing over and over again in different ways, the game is worth losing over and over again in different ways.. Like Dwarf Fortress' slogan "Losing is fun :D".

Pretty much. If I have to start over after I'm 40 hours (or even 10 hours) in, the game gets uninstalled. Recreating my progress through old content I've already completed isn't very interesting. Also, I take into consideration the amount of grinding and harvesting I had to go through to get to that point.

Consider this analogy...

Imagine reading a 1000 page novel. You get to page 768 and then your bookmark falls out of your book. (Or... Your library book checkout "timer" ran out.) Imagine how frustrating it would be if you couldn't just thumb through that book to find the page you were on. It would suck to have to re-read all 767 previous pages just to get back to page 768. You already know what happened in those pages. There are no surprises for you to encounter. You'd probably set the book down and pick up something new.

That one is pretty simple. The Pkunk-to-Yehat trigger could have been a dialog choice. It could have been set up to happen once you ask them about the Yehat. Or, it could have been set up to happen once you told them to go do it. 

The act-based system is how I prefer modern RPGs. Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin both fit this mold. When I play these games, I always clear out any sidequests before I continue with the story. And before I continue the story, I always go to a FAQ and see if I had completed all available quests.

This fits a strategy / worldbuilding game to a tee. Dwarf Fortress was not an RPG.

Being reminded of the pkunk/yehat thing actually kind of titled me in another direction. That really did make it feel like the universe was alive and I had to actually pay attention if I wanted to help people the way I thought I did. Sometimes I forget the kind of strategy aspect of 'watching the map' like that. 

So are you saying SC2 wasn't worth playing over and over again? Because that was the point of my first statement.

Honestly, the timed quests, like the pkunk migration, the death march, etc etc were part of what made SC2 so unique and special. There's a number of things that went into shaping the game that we know and love, but without those timed quests, would it ever have felt as alive? Think about it this way: Star Control 2 was the way that it was because it started development as the equivalent of a AAA title and awkwardly transitioned into an indie title. The way the music was written (without a formal composer), the way the dialogue was written (partially outsourced to random volunteers), and technical limitations at the time all coalesced into this magical, whimsical ball of tactics, strategy, etiquette, and fantasy.

 I hope that if Stardock gathers anything from this thread, its that, sure, they can remove the Timed Quests entirely, but their omission will undoubtedly make the game generic and bland. Leave them as an option, give us some incentives to turn that on. You're wondering "Why do you want incentives if their presence is so important?" And I'll tell you why: as a developer myself, there has to be a reason for every asset you place in the game, otherwise it's a waste of resources. Why bother putting something in the game if you know no one will ever use it? So the incentives are there as a justification for development, no matter how small the impact was on the pipeline as a whole. This isn't to say there isn't a place for mysteries within the setting, but the purpose there is purely for worldbuilding.  "The monolith is there because it was, noone really knows why." "The lone goat on the moon bleats facing South for no apparent reason."

Edit: There's opportunities ALL through SC2 to extend the timer beyond 5 years. Like, I've had playthroughs where I was intentionally killing time so that the march would start and kill the Druuge before starting the assault on the Sa-Matra

A game like SC2 isn't linear though.  The game doesn't force you to go a certain way, it's not like a book at all.  By making things like a death march wait around for you to trigger it it becomes much more linear and takes away player choice.  Hell, I started a few games by ignoring the starbase and setting out to see what I could accomplish.

In less linear games the distinction between side/main/story quests is not always immediately clear.

But anyway, a system that encourages metagaming or using outside sources to figure out a game's chronology just doesn't seem very good to me.

Does this statement only apply to Act systems, or are you also going to apply it to timed quests as well? If it applies to both, I agree with you 100%.

Sure, to some... But not if you end up losing. Dumping 40 hours into a story, losing, and starting over sucks. 

I played SC2 without a timer. (Or rather, I had the power to pause time.) I did not feel that SC2 was generic and bland. Maybe this is the solution? Maybe there is a way to work in exploration "off the clock"? To decouple the timer from actual playtime? (i.e. I can go AFK for 40 hours and not come back to a GAME OVER screen.)

I personally think that the initial comments by Valzaed saying that they were putting timed recurring events in was fine.

This goes back to the tangible reward theme... I will create a new thread on it for discussion.

True enough.

However, there's a key difference, timed quests are based on a clock, and In SC2 that clock was overt. The game world (NPCs) provided you with many approximations in terms of how much time you had to accomplish certain things. Even during the very first dialogue with the starbase commander he advised spending "a couple of months, maybe a year" on gathering resources and exploring. Or the Zoq-Fot-Pik saying "Dude, war is getting worse, green ships are losing, stuff is going to go down soon," or the commander stating "massive movement of ships detected near the core" less than a year before the death march. You have a clock, you're given in-game information about time, sounds pretty intuitive to me.

The act system, on the other hand, is a covert speed of plot that (at best) relies on warning the player "once you start this quest, there is no going back, sorry" Much more artificial, much more arbitrary, and immersion breaking to boot.

I understand that you are trying to make a distinction that puts timers in a better light than triggers, but the true menace is missable content. That's one element that drives people to meta gaming and guides.

It's hard to avoid missable content, though. That's why it comes down to a choice. Do you want a system where the game imposes content lock outs (Do this by 20xx or else!), or do you want that lock out to be in the hands of the player (I'm ready to continue the plot!)?

I'd rather have that immersion breaking pop-up.

(By the way... I poo poo on act based games that don't give me prompts.)

It may be an age thing.  When I was younger I loved a game that made me take notes and make maps.  Today I won't even do it.  That's why I ran into the Kohr Ah thing in my first game, I was just running through the game assuming that eventually I would find everything just through exploring.  But you really have to at least take some notes or use a wiki (which I avoid like the plague with a game like this, ruins everything).  So on my second play through I am taking the important notes and using a wiki for the quasispace map so I don't have to make my own.  But this could be an age thing where younger players don't have a big of a problem with this as us older people do, because I loved having to do that with games but hate it now.

Modern RPGs have all the tools to avoid any "offline" note taking and map making bu the player, SC2 should use those methods in SC.

Truth be told, I was actually impressed by the biggest lock out in Witcher 2, and the lock outs in games like Morrowind. As long as they made sense in the story, I didn't need to see 100% of the content. It's actually games that allow me to do everything, even at the expense of reason, that bother me a bit. 

I'm ok with missing some stuff. Finding a conquered planet full of ruins after running out of time would be fun to me, because I'd wonder about the "what ifs" and the brunt of that failure would actually build immersion for me, especially if the world was capable of reacting to that event. It'd be kind of like losing a seasoned squad during an XCOM mission, or losing half of your dwarves in Dwarf Fortress to a dragon, but not losing the whole game just yet. Games rarely offer interesting ways to lose these days, just "win all or reload save game," which is kind of meh in terms of what I enjoy.

We just have different expectations. Words fail, now our doctrinal conflict can only be resolved through war.  

I agree with the OP that a strict time limit isn't always fun.  I didn't know about it in SC2 until 30 days from the end.  As a result, I never beat the game.

Some pushing could be good though.  I really like the idea of long-timer incentive events (I think Vaelzed mentioned this). If I miss it, then I have to wait 6 game months, but I can try again sometime at least. 

Fallout 4 has a strange way of doing this pushing ***SPOILER ALERT!!!*** At the start of the game, your kid is taken. Then you're given free choice to do anything you want for however long...it's up to you to feel pushed, but man oh man, I felt a need to go find my kid.  I knew I was weak and the world was strange to me, so I took a bit of time getting stronger, but then I ran after him.  I'm 55 hours in and maybe halfway along the main quest.  I don't feel like I was actually rushed, but I felt pressure the whole time to get strong and go help my kid!  It was a graceful but completely unenforcable way of putting pressure on me.

I have not clue what the reboot could do to achieve similar results, but I would certainly be in favor of some pushing, stopping just short of outright failure and the forefiture of 100 hours of gameplay.

You know, in some circles this would be referred to as a "poor sport" . It's okay to miss content the first time through. I don't feel a compulsion to throw a fit any time I lose my bookmark

In retrospect, a lot of this debate probably doesn't amount to anything anyways, but it's still entertaining.

I think he was making the point that most gamers would be done with the game at that point, and would not replay it.  Only someone who was really into it would start over again.

Honestly I find it one of my pet peeves when I can look at a game I've been playing and go "Okay, I've done everything, it's complete now". Makes me think of a game as being work that I need to do and I hate that sensation. With the timers and the like I get to feel (however undeserved) clever. Take Wasteland 2 fairly recently, very early in the game you're informed that a lab that researchs how to grow food in the wastes is under attack, also a town full of people that helps supply water is under attack. WHAT DO YOU DO!? Naturally while you're doing one, consequences occur at the other, consequences that the game is informing you about over radio as you complete whichever one you do do.

I suppose I'm favour of what seems to be a semi-popular opinion here, have things happen without my input, but be darned sure that I'm informed that they are happening and give me a chance to try and correct things if I want. Timer with a snooze button, so to speak. Hm. Again I feel I'm rambling a little.

One noticeable thing in SC2 is that events have no effect on the timer.  The whole "war" would seem far more real if certain events delayed the timer and gave you more time.  For example, sending the Traddash, Supox, and Utwig to attack the Ur Quan should all give you more time, giving the player the impression that they have weakened them by doing that.  Its a little thing that would have made a big difference in immersion in the original.

I was under the impression the Utwig-suppox alliance did give more time but the thraddash didn't (as they were terrible).

Maybe they do, which would go back to the earlier point that the player needs to be more aware that the timers exist, since I didn't get any kind of hint that it they were extending the time... if they are.

I'd be loathe to see a huge timer flash up on the screen with "Time till everything dies" written on it, but perhaps more clues in conversations, maybe a report saying something like "Wow, the utwig got massacred, but reports are saying they killed a whole lot of Kohr-Ah as well, this should hinder their war effort!". I suppose I'm saying I like my immersion.

Hmm... I can see what you are saying.  Adventure games are not generally my thing, SC is one of the few I have liked, and I am prone ignore the story and focus on playing the game.  So I wasn't absorbing the hints I should have been, I was wanting to play the exploration/lander/space combat game parts.  I can see how something obvious like a clock counting down would actually be a bad thing in this type of game.  This might just be a case of me not being very good at adventure games, haha.

The last time I played was quite a while but I remember getting prompts from allied vessels who were fighting on how the war was faring. And maybe its just my imagination but I think I remember spheres of influence getting a bit smaller with time and stuff like that.

But it is true that having clearer indications would be good. I certainly remember the first time I played I got caught by surprise but then again not so surprised since the station commander DOES tell you how long you should take to do certain things.

My second playthrough was much better. Well I save very strategically to avoid repeating stuff so I already had a saved game with the most optimized start (which I did about a dozen times to arrive at) which made it easier to start again (I'm not really starting from scratch).

But I do agree that there should be clear ways to distinguish from timed events and garbage miscellaneous small talk. I think the reason many people don't seem to take NPCs at face value is that usually they don't have much useful or important information critical to the game. So when a the station commander tells you to only spend a year gathering resources you don't think he really seriously meant that. You think it was just a ploy to create a sense of urgency and realism into the game.

But a countdown IS too obvious. Perhaps rather than having only an NPC give important plot information it should also be included SOMEWHERE else.

The purpose of dividing a game into ACTS is too bring focus to the most important aspect of that stage of the game. Usually when going into an ACT you get some sort of summary synopsis on what has happened so far, what is going on, and what needs to be done. So if the narrative says the Orc horde will be upon you in 3 years you generally tend to believe the narrative. This is reinforced by NPCs constantly talking about only having 3 years to prepare the defense against the Orcs.

You are correct. The Utwig-Suppox gave the player a whole extra year, lots and lots of time.

A good solution would have been to (apart from the hints) illustrate how the conflict between Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah was going on the map itself.

The easiest way to do this in SC2 would have been to tie the game timer to the Kzer-Za sphere of influence on the map, and have it visually shrink to reflect them losing the war. Getting the Suppox-Utwig could have caused a visible year long stand-off, after which the sphere of influence would begin shrinking again. The timer reaching zero would coincide with the (now tiny) Kzer-Za sphere finally collapsing on itself, and the Kohr-Ah death march would then commence.

I don't know why they didn't do this with the Kzer-Za/Kohr-Ah, but did with some of the other wars.

Edit: Corrections.

Yes, using the map to show that better is a great idea.

The Thraddash actually do effect it. However, unlike the Utwig/Supox, the Thraddash merely pause the timer, while the Utwig/Supox actually extend it. A subtle difference.